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Painful Step Forward by Arae

Merit for January 2023

What is this dead weight?
My heart a stone in my chest.
Cold, lifeless, limp; dead.

Bereft of pain's blessed kiss,
A void of nothingness.
An empty space, a blank line;
Name now erased.

Stained and tattered,
A tapestry of our life,
Want and need, endlessly
Left unfilled.

I waited,
For eons I waited,
Time's painful tick on the wall.

I've walked away,
A ghost,
A shadow,
A memory in your mind.

Not even a memory,
Forget me as I do you,
Face forward, chin lifted.

A matriarch never stops,
Always hard,
Never soft,
Each polite curtsey,
Each smile faked.

I can't even hate you,
I feel nothing,
Nothing except...

Regret.